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Last month, the online prediction market Kalshi filed some very dry but potentially very lucrative paperwork with the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The company, which allows users to predict real-world event outcomes that range from election winners to the annual number of U.S. cases of whooping cough, announced its intent to offer markets for football point spreads, totals, and individual touchdown scorers, too. In other words, Kalshi users would no longer be limited to predicting game results, awards winners, win totals, and end-of-season champions. Instead, they would be able to make these sportsbook-style wagers on the platform, without going through a state-licensed sportsbook to do it. Technically, Kalshi doesnt take bets or set odds itself, and the company carefully avoids referring to its business as gambling. Instead, it enables customers to trade event contracts priced between 1 and 99 cents, where the prices roughly correspond to the percentage chance that the market believes a given outcome will occur. Kalshi, which allows trading both on its own site and also through its partnership with Robinhood, makes its money on transaction fees. When the market resolves, those who hold the winning position are paid out at $1 per share. For example, if Kalshi offers a contract for whether Justin Jefferson catches a touchdown on Monday Night Football, and Jefferson promptly reels in a 77-yard bomb and then hits the Griddy, those who bought shares in the yes position would get to cash in. Those who banked on Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy struggling to throw downfield in his regular-season debut would get nothing. (As of this writing, Robinhood allows users to bet on some sports outcomes via its Kalshi partnership, but doesnt yet offer Kalshis prop bets.) Given how ubiquitous sports gambling has become since the Supreme Court struck down a near-total federal ban in 2018, the distinction between buying an event contract on Kalshi and placing a conventional bet on the DraftKings app might seem irrelevant. But there are differences that matter. Because Kalshi is regulated by the federal government, its contracts effectively enable people to skirt local regulations and place bets in states where sports betting is still illegalamong others, California, Georgia, and Texas. Unlike state-licensed sportsbooks, federally regulated exchanges like Kalshi are also not subject to state-mandated procedures for reporting suspicious sports betting patterns. Last year, Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter received a lifetime ban from the NBA for tipping off bettors that he intended to fake an injury to ensure that his under bets would hit. The NBA opened an investigation after sportsbooks found that prop bets on Porter, a fringe player on a bad team, were among the biggest winners of the night. If a player were to try the same stunt on a platform like Kalshi, it might be more challenging to find out that the game is literally rigged. In most states, users must be 21 to use DraftKings or FanDuel. Kalshi users, however, need only to be 18. Studies show that problem gamblers are disproportionately young men, who now have the ability to gamble away paychecks, inheritances, and student loan money via smartphone app. In my view, the nationwide availability of a lightly regulated platform that functionally lowers the gambling age from 21 to 18 is troubling, to say the least. Like all exchanges, Kalshi is subject to CFTC-required integrity and surveillance requirements. It also works with a third-party service to monitor for suspicious sports betting-related activity, and recently debuted responsible risk management tools, like those in use at sportsbooks, that allow users to cap their deposits, take breaks, and opt out of market access. That said, when asked about consumer protection concerns earlier this year, a lawyer for Kalshi said, People are adults, and theyre allowed to spend their money however they want it, and if they lose their shirt, thats on thema response that does not suggest that the company is terribly concerned with some of the bigger-picture issues here. To date, a few state regulators have sent the company cease-and-desist letters, but with limited success. Federal district courts in Nevada and New Jersey have found that the CFTCs jurisdiction over exchanges like Kalshi is likely exclusive, which means states would not have the legal authority to regulate themor, critically, to tax them. Robinhood quickly filed lawsuits of its own in both states, arguing that Kalshis victories clear the way for Robinhood to offer sports contracts on its platform, too. Those leery of using events contracts as a backdoor form of sports betting have what might, on paper, sound like a pretty good argument: CFTC regulations bar exchanges like Kalshi from listing contracts related to gaming, which, at least in the colloquial sense of the word, would seem to cover point spreads and player props. And as ESPNs David Purdum and Shwetha Surendran reported earlier this year, in early 2024, Kalshis own lawyers argued that this gaming language bars the sports-related contracts that the company is now rolling out. Why? At the time, the company wanted to list contracts for election outcomes, and asserted that regulators intended gaming to refer to sports, and thus not to politics. A federal court eventually greenlit Kalshis offerings in time for the 2024 elections, and the company says it posted around $1 billion in trading volume on the results. With the election behind it, though, Kalshi has spent 2025 pushing further into sports, notwithstanding its lawyers earlier arguments. And under President Donald Trump, Kalshi has good reasons to be optimistic about its chances of clearing whatever regulatory hurdles might stand in its way. In January, the company announced that Trumps son, Donald, Jr., would serve as a strategic advisor, touting his ability to help push prediction markets into the mainstream. Trumps nominee to serve as the new CFTC chair, Brian Quintenz, is a Kalshi shareholder who sits on Kalshis board of directors. Quintenz plans to resign and sell his stock if confirmed; even so, if a recently departed board member takes over as the head of its primary regulator, Kalshi is probably going to feel pretty good about that relationship going forward. Already, Kalshi has scored a major legal victory since Trump took office: Shortly after that federal court allowed the company to list contracts related to the 2024 elections, the Biden administration appealed. But under new leadership, the CFTC voluntarily dropped its appeal in May, leaving users free to take long positions on whether JD Vance, Gavin Newsom, or someone else wins the White House in 2028. Kalshi has promised a slow rollout of its contracts on NFL props, and told InGame, a publication that covers the sports betting industry, that it has no immediate plans to offer college football props. But the success of its initial filings seems to have further emboldened the company: This week, Kalshi submitted additional paperwork to the CFTC to allow users to more or less construct parlayspopular sportsbook bets that require multiple events, or legs, to occur in order to pay out. One contracta market for predicting whether the Dallas Cowboys would beat the Philadelphia Eagles on Thursday, and the teams would combine to score at least 48 points, and Cowboys receiver CeeDee Lamb would score a touchdownwent live shortly before kickoff. (It did not hit.) To date, traditional sportsbooks have been publicly critical of exchanges like Kalshia position that makes sense, given that they have 70 billion reasons and counting to maintain their oligopoly on the market. But under an administration that has adopted a lax, industry-friendly stance to prediction markets regulation, sportsbooks are increasingly looking to get in on the action themselves: If they can persuade at least some customers to make basically the same wagers, but on a platform that isnt subject to state regulation or state taxes, they are going to get over their initial skepticism in a hurry. Sure enough, Underdog recently partnered with Crypto.com, which rolled out a sports event contract business in December. FanDuel has announced that it will offer event contracts with the CME Group, a derivatives marketplace; DraftKings says it is evaluating its prediction market-adjacent options, too. The growth of prediction market-based sports betting doesnt mean that traditional sports betting will disappear. But it does mean that the problems created by legal sports gamblingthe addiction epidemic, the embarrassing scandals, an increasingly captured sports media ecosystem that is seemingly incapable of covering games without incorporating an officially sponsored betting angleare going to get worse. The companies that take bets (by any name) care about making money. This is just one more way for them to do it.
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E-Commerce
We live in a world where workers are doing more varied and complex tasks. And in most instances, theyre doing so at the expense of focus and performance, according to a global EY study. People are juggling priorities that shift by the hour and filling their days with decisions that drain more than they deliver. And after more than two decades working with leaders and teams on productivity and time management, Ive seen the same pattern play out again and again. That of smart, capable people caught in a cycle of saying yes to everything. As a result, they leave little space for what really matters. My client, Alex, was no exception to this. Most days were a familiar and exhausting routine. On a typical day, hed finally open his laptop around 10:15 a.m. By then, hed already had three conversations, reviewed an urgent email thread, made lunchbox sandwiches, resolved a childcare drop-off tantrum, and sat through half a leadership meeting with his camera off and a blank stare. His day had technically begun hours earlier, but it wasnt until then that he had a moment to look at his calendar and feel the weight of nine meetings, two deadlines, and yesterdays unfinished list pressing in. Breaking the cycle of yes If this sounds familiar to you, thats because most of us in the modern world have developed an unconscious reflex to keep saying yes to urgency, opportunity, and momentum. In doing so, weve trained ourselves to push forward without pause. We’ve also convinced ourselves that availability equals value and responsiveness equals worth. Our best thinking, most meaningful contributions, and clearest leadership rarely emerge from this state of constant forward motion. They emerge from space. And space is only possible when we learn to press pause, even briefly, and reclaim our right to decide when something deserves our time, attention, and energy. This echoes cognitive load research, which shows that the brain’s working memory can only process so much before it starts dropping or distorting information. Overcommitting is more of a capacity issue than a time issue. The power of a deliberate pause One of the most underused and undervalued tools in this regard is not a new app or a color-coded calendar system. Its a simple phrase: not now. Its not about avoidance or indecision. This phrase lets us be deliberate with how we navigate our days and our decisions. Not now allows us to acknowledge somethings importance without letting it run our schedule. It gives us permission to protect our current focus, preserve our mental bandwidth, and delay commitment until we have the capacity to give it our full attention. What makes this particularly powerful is that it doesnt rely on dramatic change. It asks only for awareness. In fact, small shifts in how we respond to requests and obligations can be the most transformative, precisely because theyre sustainable. Start by noticing where the automatic yes creeps in. That might be meetings you dont need to attend, projects that belong on someone elses desk, and tasks that are loud but not actually important. Begin questioning the pull to respond immediately by pausing before you commit. Let silence do some of the heavy lifting. This kind of deliberate delay can be uncomfortable at first. Were conditioned to equate speed with success. Slowing down can feel risky, even subversive. But what were really doing is replacing reflex with intention. And the impact can be profound. Leading with discernment By saying not now, we arent rejecting opportunity or disengaging from our responsibilities. Were creating room to assess whether those opportunities align with our values, goals, or priorities. Were choosing to invest our energy where it will have the most impact, not just where the noise is loudest. Over time, this practice becomes more than a productivity tactic. It becomes a leadership mindset. At some point, every effective leader needs to learn to stop reacting and start choosing. We all operate in dynamic environments. There will always be times when there is real urgency, and we need to respond. But even in those moments, the ability to discern between what demands our attention now and what can wait becomes a defining skill. Leaders who master this are often those who appear calm amid chaos. Not because they arent busy, but because theyve learned to carry less noise. They know how to separate the signal from the static. They are discerning with their time, and clear in their decisions. They’re also generous with their presence because theyve protected it from being scattered in too many directions at once. So when you next feel the tug of obligation, urgency, or expectation, try asking yourself one question: Does this need me now or am I simply in the habit of saying yes? Then, give yourself the grace to wait. Remember, its not forever. Its just for now.
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E-Commerce
The first time I read The Count of Monte Cristo, I was astounded by how freakin cool it all was. Heres a story about daring prison escapes, finding hidden treasure, and elaborately executed revenge. It felt aliveno matter that it was written 180 years ago. That book, and everything else published before 1930, is currently in the United States public domain. That means its perfectly legal for anyone to re-create the original text and publish it online or off. And there are a number of websites dedicated to offering public domain ebooks online, which is fantastic. But free downloads can be kindawell, ugly. Whether its typos from the transcription process, inconsistent style choices, or missing details like cover art, an exceptional digital reading experience isnt always easy to find. Its almost enough to make you want pay a few bucks for an ebook thats technically free, just to get a better designed product. Before you do that, though, you should check out todays Cool Tools discovery. Itll change how you think about reading on a screen, and youll never want to go back to the old way again. This tip originally appeared in the free Cool Tools newsletter from The Intelligence. Get the next issue in your inbox and get ready to discover all sorts of awesome tech treasures! Beautiful ebook downloads$0 The great thing about free culture is that people can build on whats freely offered and better adapt it for a specific purpose. The website I want to share with you today is a perfect example of that, building on the free ebook downloads from sites like Project Gutenberg and The Internet Archive. Its called Standard Ebooks, and its a collection of over 1,000 free ebooks with a real focus on style, design, and compatibility. The result: Every book offered on the site is absolutely beautifuland an absolute pleasure to read. You can start browsing the archive immediately and transfer a book to any device you like in 20 seconds or less. Whether you read books on a Kindle, a Kobo, or even just on your phoneAndroid, iOS, whateveryoull find beautifully formatted books made specifically for your screen. Standard Ebooks looks and feels like a polished, premium marketplaceeven though it’s free. Youll also find easy-to-follow instructions for getting the books onto your device and into a place where you can easily read them. Formats offered include epub, azw3 for Amazon Kindle gadgets, and kepub for Kobo devices. Or you can opt to simply read a book right within your browser, evenwith an easy-to-navigate chapter-by-chapter framework or on a single click-free page. You can get books formatted for any kind of device you’re using. Standard Ebooks has a handy search function if youre looking for something specific, or you can browse by things like genre, release date, or author. Every ebook offered has a visually pleasing cover, also from the public domain (and with not a single AI-generated illustration in sight). And all are edited to adhere to a rigorous style guide. Books from Standard Ebooks aregasp!actually a pleasure to read. Its the rare free software project thats focused on aesthetics. Ive read several books from Standard Ebooks over the years, and I always appreciate the attention to detail. I bet you will, too. Standard Ebooks is available online, within any web browser on any device. Its a completely free service, though it does offer opportunities for both donations and volunteering. You dont have to sign up for any accounts or provide any manner of personal info to use the site and download to your hearts content. Treat yourself to all sorts of brain-boosting goodies like this with the free Cool Tools newsletterstarting with an instant introduction to an incredible audio app thatll tune up your days in truly delightful ways.
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